


what's better than this just guys being dudes

by iamnotalizard



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, M/M, Trans Character, guess what u can make a coming out fic WITHOUT making the trans char feel unsafe, trans fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:33:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotalizard/pseuds/iamnotalizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which keith wants to come out to lance, and does so when he feels safe and happy and not pressured</p>
            </blockquote>





	what's better than this just guys being dudes

**Author's Note:**

> this might become a collection of one shots if i ever stop ebing lazy n get off my ass

The pressure on Keith’s ribs had passed the point of annoying to painful sometime ago. He knew it was stupid to be training so hard with his binder on, throwing his body into every move he made, and to get tossed around by the drones while wear it. And yet, even after his ribs ached in a way that told him he needed to take it off, when Lance waltzed into the training room, challenging Keith to a ‘Smack Down’, he pushed aside his better judgement in order to entertain his boyfriend.

 

It was fine at first, his movements only a bit slower, but he could always say that it was because he was sore from his previous work out, should anyone ask. Keith’s lowered agility didn’t prevent him from pinning Lance to the ground, more than once.

 

It was on the fourth time that Lance said, “No, dude, I’ll _totally_ beat you this time. I can feel it.” that Keith finally had to decline.

 

“No,” was his simple answer. He tried to slip a sassy jab, something like ‘I wouldn’t want to hurt your ego anymore,’ but with every breath it felt like his rib cage was getting crushed. Sweat made the material stick to his skin, making him feel like his skin was getting rubbed raw with every movement. He hunched over, hands on knees, eyes scrunched tight trying to regain his composure.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” Lance asked, words laced with concern. He went to put his hand on Keith’s shoulder, but while he was moving Keith jerked up.

 

“Yeah,” Keith said, still puffing slightly and face red, “yeah, I just. You knocked the wind out of me with that last hit, that’s all.”

 

“Really?” Lance’s face broke into a grin.

 

“Yeah, you’re getting better,” it wasn’t a lie, Lance was getting better, just not good enough to wind Keith with just a well placed hit, yet, “not good enough to beat _me,_ but better.”

 

Lance pouted, worries brushed away with Keith acting normal now and the flush on his face disappearing. “Wow, rude.”

 

Keith rolled his eyes, “Train more, and maybe next time you’ll manage to pin me once.” he said, walking out of the room. He walked directly to his room, quickly and quietly. As soon as the door shut, and he made sure it was locked, he frantically started tugging off his shirt, then wrestled with his binder, sweat making it adhere to his chest.

Keith sighed, eyes closed, refusing to look at his body. His lungs filled with air, and his ribs still ached in a way that said _you did this to yourself, buddy_ but wasn’t painful.

 

Sweat beginning to dry on his skin, Keith pulled his sports bra on, glad that on the day where they all discovered Voltron, he had decided to layer it under his binder. It didn’t made his chest as flat, but it would do the job for simply throwing another shirt on and dashing towards the washroom, located just down the hall.

 

Sometimes when Keith went to go shower, Lance would say that they should shower together to ‘conserve water’, with a strange wiggle of his eyebrows, the one that told Keith that he was kidding. (“Unless totally down with it, then I’m one hundred percent serious.”)

 

Keith response was always a flick to Lance’s forehead, and a muttering of, “Maybe one day.”

 

One day, Keith repeated to himself. maybe one day.

 

-

 

Between fighting aliens and exploring new planets, life on the castle wasn’t actually that exciting. Artificial day-night cycles would blur into another, as they ship drifted through space. Long periods of relaxation-turned-boredom, broken up by fights and high stress situations only to return to the relaxing lull of space life once again.

 

Keith didn’t think that space life would involve so much spontaneous napping, even when he was training at the Garrison.  Without his conspiracy shack, and with none of his past belongings with him, Keith didn’t really have any hobbies to take up all his new spare time. Pidge and Hunk both had tinkering with machinery, Shiro had his leadership and diplomacy lessons, courtesy of Allura, and Lance, well. Lance could make a hobby out of anything.

 

All Keith had was training, but sometimes his muscles just hurt too much and he felt aches all the way down to his bones, and then he didn’t even have that. So, he took up napping.

 

Keith was waking, slowly and reluctantly, from one of these recurring naps that he became aware of a weight over his waist. He had fallen asleep in one of the numerous living rooms in the castle, had flopped down, ungraceful and heavy onto the couches and just went town, falling asleep in only a few minutes. He had been alone then, everyone else in differently places that he couldn’t keep track of. But, even as his eyelids were putting up a good fight to close once again, Keith knew he wasn’t alone now.

 

He looked at the arm over his waist, tired eyes blurring the outside of his vision just the slightest bit. Looking down, he saw the dark green of a cargo jacket, the dark tan of a thin hand, and long fingers curling loosely into Keith’s shirt. Keith smiled, a soft sleepy grin, as he looked over his shoulder at Lance’s, vaguely disgusting, but cute sleeping face. His hair was askew, sticking to his forehead but sticking up in the back, probably from him having to slide down the back of the couch to fit himself behind Keith.

 

Keith made a move to grab onto Lance’s hand, but as his skin brushed against Lance’s, the taller boy stirred slightly, arms moving up lazily towards Keith’s chest, before falling limp against it. Keith’s breath hitched, unsure what to do as Lance nuzzled his face into the warmth of Keith’s neck and drifted back into a deep sleep.

 

Keith stared down at the hands, as if it had personally offended him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he grasped it with his own, and moved it back down in front of his bellybutton, fingers intertwined with Lance’s, to prevent the hand from travelling up again. (And because, though Keith hated to admit it, he loved holding Lance’s hand.)

 

Crisis averted, Keith thought, as he closed his eyes again.

 

-

 

It goes on like that for a while; Keith drawing his line in the sand, but being the one to always start to cross it. Lance, even though Keith can tell he wants to get closer, never pushes Keith, never even questions why Keith is fine with kisses, hand holding and even side hugs, yet gets close to punch Lance if he even brushes against his torso.

 

Keith half wishes that he and Lance can just stay like this forever, in this stage of their relationship where they just seem like friends, but they kiss each other and call the other cute. It’s nice, simple, close enough to one another that Keith never feels alone, but not close enough that Keith can justify not telling Lance. He knows Lance doesn’t _have_ to know, and that Lance has no right to know just because he’s dating Keith, but Keith, despite all his nervousness and fear, kind of wants Lance to know.

 

Shiro knows, of course Shiro knows. He has a personality that just screams, ‘if you ever want to talk to someone, i’m here’ and Keith took full advantage of that once he was comfortable enough. Shiro is great, never missing a beat, never questioning Keith and he always tells Keith that the only one that picks his gender is himself. But, Shiro isn’t Lance, and as much as Keith admire him, he knows that in the end he’ll hold Lance’s words closer to heart.

 

So he starts thinking of how to come out to Lance. He isn’t ready for everyone to know, isn’t prepared to answer everyone’s questions, isn’t ready to explain to Coran and Allura what transgender even _means,_ assuming that they didn’t have that back on Altea. But, as Keith narrows it all down, as organizes his thoughts, he becomes more sure that telling Lance, just Lance, is something that he can do.

 

He decides on being subtle in getting Lance alone.

 

“Hey, Lance,” he throws a strange space version of a pencil at his boyfriend’s head, as he walks into a living room. Lance groans, and rubs the spot that was hit as he looks towards Keith.

 

“What,” he whines.

 

Subtly, Keith reminds himself. “Tonight, do you want to sleep with me.” Nailed it.

 

Lance’s face to turn, and his whining is replaced with him floundering like a fish out of water.

 

“UMMM.” Lance replies.

 

“Like a sleepover.” Keith adds, seeing that his boyfriend was about two seconds away from passing out.

 

“Oh,” Lance says, blush still present on his face, but breathing back to normal, “Oh, yeah, yeah that’d be cool.”

 

Keith nods, “Okay, neato.” Keith walked out of the room, wanting to escape the questions that would follow if he stayed, such as ‘why are you asking this now’ or ‘what does it mean’. Instead, he wandered around the halls for a while before heading to the training room. He completed the first step of his plan, now all he had to do was follow through.

 

-

Having a sleepover with Lance was, basically, just them hanging out except Lance was wearing pajama pants, since he came over already in his sleeping attire.

 

For a few hours all they did was talk, watch a few Altean movies, which were, if Keith was being completely honest, kind of boring and hard to follow, and play a few games (Lance was trying to teach Keith how to play Stella-Stella-Hola with an intensity Keith had never seen before), with the occasional kiss and hand holding in between or during. By the time they both started yawning, and Lance’s eyelids would flutter shut for a few seconds, only to snap back open when Keith poked his forehead, the article night cycle had started long ago; the ship's main lights had shut down and the only source of light was the person, manually operated lights in Keith’s room.

 

“Do you want to go to sleep?” Keith asked, knowing that Lance would say yes and that he’d have to follow through with coming out when he did.

 

Lance nodded, and hummed in response, eyes opening again.

 

“Okay, just let me change, then we can sleep.” Keith said, softly, peeling himself away from Lance. Lance’s eyes followed Keith as he walked around the room, picking up pj pants and a shirt to change into. Keith took a deep breath, and knowing that Lance was still watching him, took of his shirt.

Keith felt naked without a shirt on, staining only in pants and a binder for a few seconds, glancing over at Lance. He saw the wheels in his mind turning, putting pieces together, before making a soft noise of understanding.

 

“Can you,” Keith swallowed, “can you look away while I take it off?”

 

Lance nodded, closing his eyes and faced the other direction. Keith let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t ready to be seen without a binder yet. Struggling only slightly, he got his binder off and changed into his pajamas, before laying down next to Lance, putting a few inches between the two of them.

 

“You can turn around now, if you want.” Keith said, not quite sure if _he_ wanted Lance to turn around, to see Keith’s chest unflattened.

 

Lance rolled over, eyes still closed, and breathing softly, but fast enough that Keith knew he was still awake. Lance lifted an arm up slightly, and went to put it over Keith’s waist, but it stilled in the air an inch before it touched Keith.

 

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Lance asked, voice sleepy but full of concern.

 

“Yeah, it is, just let me-” Keith turned to his side, so that Lance’s chest would press against his back. “Yeah, go for it.”

 

Lance let his arm drop and cuddled up against Keith’s back, burying his face into Keith’s hair (“You know I haven’t showered in a few days right? My hair is kinda nasty.” “Yeah, well, all of you is nasty and I still like you, let me have this, Keith.”)

 

Keith took a few deep breathes, trying to slow his heartbeat. He felt safe, didn’t feel scared or bad, but he was still filled with an anxiety that wouldn’t quite so away.

 

“You know this is fine, right?” Lance mumbled, making Keith jump slightly, “Like.. I’m cool with this, I know this is important, but, like, I don’t think or feel any different about you. I still like you, and think you’re great.”

 

Keith smiled, eyes closed, and slowly felt some of the anxiety slip away, “I know.”

 

“Wow, no compliment back? That’s cold, Keith. I just said some real gay shit to you, and all you say is, ‘I know’? I’m heartbroken.”

  
“Go to sleep, Lance.” Keith said, as he reached back to pinch Lance. He let out a squawk, but quieted down. _This is okay,_ Keith thought, _things are going to be okay._

**Author's Note:**

> i love trans voltron even tho lance was cis here u best bleaf that everyone, EVERYONE, in voltron is trans keith is my SON


End file.
